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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26634733">Sandcastles to the Sea</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/chucks_prophet/pseuds/chucks_prophet'>chucks_prophet</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Supernatural</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Heavy Angst, Inspired by a prompt, Love Confessions, M/M, Season/Series 15, Season/Series 15 Spoilers, Some Humor</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 09:55:42</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,136</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26634733</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/chucks_prophet/pseuds/chucks_prophet</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>He really shouldn’t be surprised. Dean would’ve done the same. Sometimes it’s easy to overlook other people’s suffering when you’re submerged underwater. "Wait, so... skipping past the whole emo deal for a second... you—?"</p>
<p>"Of course I—" Cas catches himself. "Of course. Did you really think you were broken for loving me?"</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Castiel/Dean Winchester</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>54</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Sandcastles to the Sea</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Inspired by a prompt I came across on Instagram that reads: "I just want dean and cas to coincidentally go back to that barn in Illinois on a case or something and just relentlessly tease each other and to have dean clatter through those doors and mock cas' perdition speech two octaves too low in fits of giggles until cas threatens to stab in in the chest just like last time dean" (not sure who credit goes to, as it got cut off in the post so I apologise for that!)</p>
<p>I knocked it out of the park with coincidentally going back to Pontiac, but not so much the lighthearted nature of the visit because everything I touch turns to angst.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p>
<p>
  <em>It's not the end, but it feels like it is</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>I'm waking up like I'm back from the dead</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>I'm stepping out, and I feel so free</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>But as long as I'm moving it's all right</em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"Electricity's still out."</p>
<p>Dean shines his flashlight on the surrounding walls. Every sigil is still intact up to the ceiling. His heart picks up noticing one of the Devil's Traps slightly smudged before he sees a familiar boot print outlined in the ghostly white spray paint. Upon stepping further in, he hits something with his own boot that sings in an echo across the barn. Flashing his light on the wooden floor again, he bends down to retrieve the object. Lacking the warmth of its owner's pocket, the flask is cold in Dean's hands. It's also much lighter than it probably should be. He unscrews the top and brings it to his nose and immediately recoils. Even the little bit of whiskey inside it is twelve years too potent.</p>
<p>"Can you imagine Bobby slipping out of this flask Robin Williams-genie style?" Dean muses after screwing the lid back on.</p>
<p>"I wouldn't put it past him," Cas agrees, moving to the table of supplies still residing in the corner of the room. He picks up a vampire blade, admiring the cutlery as he turns it over in his hands a few times. "He was a stubborn man. You learned from the best."</p>
<p>"I miss him," he admits, setting the flask back down on the floor. He doesn't want to take the risk of taking Bobby home with him again after how well that worked out last time. "The real Bobby, anyway."</p>
<p>"I saw him," Cas says, causing Dean to snap his head up. "About five years ago, Sam and I sought out an agnostic medium on a lead about the Mark."</p>
<p>"You never told me that."</p>
<p>"You were a borderline unhinged demon."</p>
<p>"I saw him working a case a year after that," Dean says, "when I was possessed by a Soul Eater."</p>
<p>Cas scoffs as he sets the blade down. "Remember when fighting a Heavenly war and self-fulfilling prophecies were simpler times?"</p>
<p>"I don't know," Dean admits, suddenly feeling like he's on the other side of the Devil's Trap, "sometimes it feels like times never were simple."</p>
<p>"I feel like most people would classify their parents burning on the ceiling of their old nursery less than simple times."</p>
<p>"Well yeah, but it's more than that," he explains, "It's like I'm just destined to be a fuck up in every version of a universe Chuck had planned for me. You know? It's like a car with a broken engine. You pull back the hood with the tools in hand to fix it, but have no fucking idea how to so you just sorta stare at it, close the hood, and pray it functions properly before you make it to Amarillo.”</p>
<p>To Dean's surprise, Cas laughs.</p>
<p>"What?" Dean's tone is a little more bruising than he'd like. If this was twelve years ago, Dean may have been able to write it off as rusty people skills. But everything about what Cas is doing is deliberate: The laughing, the stepping closer, the small smirk playing coy on his face.</p>
<p>"You haven't changed a bit," Cas says. "You're just as shallow as the barrel of the gun you pointed at me the day I broke down those doors."</p>
<p>"And you're just as bitter as the rock salt I shot you with. Your point?"</p>
<p>"You aren't broken, Dean," he asserts under the faint glow of Dean's flashlight he's shining between them, revealing every fine line—a byproduct of an aging process that was supposed to be non-existent: "You're a good mechanic; you just feel things more profoundly than anyone I know."</p>
<p>"It gets to be too much, Cas.” Dean scrubs his free hand over his face, taking note of the deepening lines in his own. "Losing mom, Chuck, the end of the world. There's only two things I know for certain: I killed the nest of Vamps in Streator tonight, and..."</p>
<p>"Bert and Ernie?"</p>
<p>"Us," Dean corrects, "I'm in love with you, Cas."</p>
<p>As if those words are a secret password, one by one, the lamps above them switch on. Dean groans and blinks rapidly, forcing them to adjust as he surveys the room. When his eyes find Cas's again, he realizes the cause of the sudden reboot of electricity and it feels like 2008 all over again. "Cas?" he asks tentatively.</p>
<p>"Dean, I-I wish I could reciprocate, but I..."</p>
<p>Dean's lungs feel like sandcastles and his airway like a current tearing it down, particle by particle, until his chest collapses from the weight of wet sand. "Oh. Right. No, I... I don't know what I was thinking—“</p>
<p>"Certainty not that you would get me killed."</p>
<p>"What?"</p>
<p>Taking a deep breath so the tears hanging precariously at the sill of his eyelids don't fall, Cas continues, "I made a deal with The Empty. My happiness for Jack's life. I thought it was a no-brainer, since I haven't been happy in a long time, but..."</p>
<p>And that’s enough to sweep Dean’s sandcastles back into the ocean. He really shouldn’t be surprised. Dean would’ve done the same. Sometimes it’s easy to overlook other people’s suffering when you’re submerged underwater. "Wait, so... skipping past the whole emo deal for a second... you—?"</p>
<p>"Of course I—" Cas catches himself. "Of course. Did you really think you were broken for loving me?"</p>
<p>"I thought I was broken for wanting to drag you into this mess of a life we live," Dean says, scoffing. "You deserve so much better, Cas."</p>
<p>"Look around, Dean," Cas encourages, "I dragged <em>myself</em> into this the moment I entered this barn—before that, even, when I pulled you from Hell. I took this mess over Heaven because you <em>are</em> my Heaven."</p>
<p>"Hold me, Cas."</p>
<p>"I know, I know, that was 'chick flick' of me to say, but it’s true."</p>
<p>"No, hold me before I start sobbing uncontrollably."</p>
<p>Cas doesn't hesitate stepping into the Devil's Trap with Dean, catching him just before he falls gripping Cas's trench coat and suffocating himself in Cas’s neck.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Instead of stopping at a motel on their way back home, they spend the night holding each other on the cold floor in the middle of the trap, protecting each other from the outside forces that threaten to tear them apart.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em>I feel alive, and it hurts for a change</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>No looking back</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>It's hard to believe that I was cool</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>With the days that I wasted</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Complacent and tasteless and bored</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>But that was yesterday</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>We're never going back to OK (OK)</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>We're never going back to easy</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>We're never going back to the way it was</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>We're never going back to OK</em>
</p>
<p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Song credit: "Never Going Back to OK" by The Afters</p></blockquote></div></div>
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